An amuse-bouche is a single, bite-sized hors d’œuvre. Often complemented by a particular wine, amuse-bouches both prepare the guest for the meal and offer a glimpse into the chef’s approach to the art of cuisine.

Poetry too, lives in the mouth. It comes alive the moment it possesses the tongue.

Take for example a bite of Neruda: ‘I want to eat your skin like a whole almond’. Or taste the words of Cohen:  ‘…my mouth on the dew of your thighs’. Savour the sound of Plath: ‘They hunted the stones, taciturn and separate/The mouth-hole crying their locations./Drunk as a foetus/I suck at the paps of darkness.’ Spit out Bolano: ‘First, he came inside me,/then he came in my mouth, and the third time, barely/a thread of water, a short fishing line, between my breasts”.  Let Lorca bite back:  “But hurry, let’s entwine ourselves as one, our mouth broken, our soul bitten by love, so time discovers us safely destroyed”.

For Issue 1.2 “Amuse-Bouche”, The Pickled Body seeks poetry that pushes the tongue to action. To fill the mouth with words until it has no choice but to speak them. Send us something delicious: poems that balance on the knife’s edge, or yield to the spoon as it cracks the burnt sugar layer of crème brûlée; poetry that is holier than the Last Supper, and with more duende than a leg of jamon Iberico.

Amuse our bouches.

Give us something on the verge of gluttony – but that doesn’t bite off more than it can chew. Send up to three of your best to thepickledbody@gmail.com. Please include “Amuse Bouche” in the subject line.  Poems must not have been published elsewhere, and should be included in your email as an attachment (word doc/pdf file).

Deadline for submissions:  January 31, 2014

Yours,

The Pickled Body